Yesterday was System Administrator Appreciation Day! As someone who works in a team that builds products for IT Pros and sys admins, Happy “Your” Day to all sys admins out there.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/073010-system-admin-day.html?hpg1=bn
A young Liverpool side beat FK Rabotnicki today 0-2. Roy went with a 4-3-3 with Milan Jovanovic playing out wide and David Ngog in the middle up front. That worked out pretty well for Ngog as he scored a nice season-opening double. I don’t think Ngog is even close to sensational, but if he’s capable of netting 10-15 goals this season, that’s surely handy and something I’ll take.
I was happy to see Aqua, Lucas and Spearing in the middle doing well. Spearing seems handy as well.
Next post – getting lots of goals from lots of players – something to hope for?
I wonder what Roy Hodgson is thinking right now. Right…now. It’s Thursday, July 29th, around 7:40am in Skopje, Macedonia where Roy and a largely inexperienced Reds side find themselves preparing for the Europa League qualifier game against FK Rabotnicki.
As he himself stated, this is a tough game; tougher still since this is his first competitive fixture having taken over as the Reds boss just under a month ago, and with as many as 10 of the senior players missing.
I don’t want to use the word depleted to describe the squad – that’s far from the truth. I’ve read everywhere that the squad is inexperienced, which is largely true. But take a closer look at the players who’ve made the trip, and I don’t think it’s all gloom and doom.
Here’s my take on who should start:
In goal is Diego Cavalieri, who is the first choice keeper in the absence of Pepe Reina (who I hope returns not as tired as the rest since he didn’t actually play in Spain’s world cup winning campaign). In defense, I think Roy should go with three at the back, with Kyrgiakos, Skrtel and Agger. Given that Glen Johnson hasn’t made the trip and the club has no leftbacks, a triad of experienced defenders seems like a wise decision to me. In midfield, I’d go with Lucas, Aquilani and Spearing in the middle, with Eccleston and Amoo providing some makeshift width. Perhaps Jovanovic can play again as a left winger as he did against Kaiserslauten. Up front would be David N’Gog, who didn’t impress me much last season, but is probably a better bet than the untested Dalla Valle. Toss in Jonjo Shelvey in the mix as a floating attacker, and I think we have a decent side. Experienced defense, decent enough midfield, and (hopefully) a bold, youthful and adventurous offense.
Personally I’m itching to see Shelvey and Jovanovic in action. Joe Cole will be very interesting to see as well (especially how he partners up with Gerrard), but let’s be honest – he’s a known quantity. Flashes of brilliance, but periods of dark. But that time will come…one thing at a time.
A number of interesting things happened in between my last post and this one. I turned 25, I realized that when doctors have no clue what to say, they say “let’s get an MRI”, Spain finally won a World Cup and Paul was right after all. But the one thing that has been the most interesting is the news that broke out today.
I woke up to my usual ritual of going to soccernet.com first thing in the morning only to be greeted by a photo of Joe Cole’s tongue and the headline “Cole agrees Liverpool move”.
This is really good news for us. It appears as if we’ve agreed to pay him about 90k per week, but given that he cost us nothing to buy, that doesn’t seem like such a bad deal. Stepping back a bit, this actually has all the markings of a fantastic business deal – Yossi goes to Chelsea, Liverpool get 5 million and Joe Cole.
Now while I don’t know who the brain is behind this, but I’m secretly hoping it’s Roy Hodgson. If it is, then for the optimists, it should only be seen as a small demonstration of what a very shrewd manager can accomplish with almost no resources.
I personally liked Yossi – I thought he was a very good player and brought a little extra spark to the offense very time he was on the pitch. Sadly, that didn’t happen too often. Yossi’s time at Liverpool was very formulaic – he would start on the bench, come on and make a big impact (score or set one up), get oozes of praises from Rafa who’d say “this is what Yossi can do for us” and give all the signs that he’d start the next game, but only to relegate him right back to the bench. No wonder Yossi was frustrated.
But I’m more excited about Joe Cole. I have to admit, I dreaded seeing him on the pitch playing in Chelsea’s blue against Liverpool – it always felt like he could ruin it for us. He had an injury-plagued time in London, but he did show all the signs of greatness every time he played.
They say footballers peak at 28. I’m really hoping this is true.
Welcome, Joe.
